


Hypocrite

by emryskynobi



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:41:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emryskynobi/pseuds/emryskynobi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>King Uther's thoughts about Merlin circa season/series one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hypocrite

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this years ago when I first saw the episode "Excalibur" and something about Uther's reaction to Merlin struck me, back when it was on basic (NBC where I live). For some reason, I never posted it on any of my fan fiction . net profiles. I guess it's because I wasn't sure how it would be received. I've kinda gotten over that.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the idea and have never seen anything past the first season because I don’t have cable.

Author’s Note: These are just little bits and segments from characters pov’s that came to my mind when watching certain episodes.

  
654321

 

Of course I knew that the boy was magic.  His very presence sang with that which is illegal in my kingdom, in my Camelot.  A magic boy who’d saved my son’s life from another magic user, killing her.  I rewarded him without thinking about how it had happened.

 

That chandelier should **_not_** have fallen.

 

I take pride in my castle’s condition.  Everything is checked and fixed to make sure that all is in order.  When one gets attacked by as many magical beings as my kingdom does, one always has to make sure that all vulnerabilities are found and fixed.

 

Hypocrite you may call me for I have not had that boy executed.  My laws are irrefutable and yet, I ignored them when it came to the boy. I came close once, so very close when he admitted that he had performed magic to save the blacksmith’s life.  That it was he and not that servant girl.

 

What was her name?

 

Ah, well, it is of no consequence.  She is nothing more than a servant to me, a subject.  While my ward has an unfortunate affection for the girl, she will soon get over it.  If not now, when she marries and is given another servant who is more suited to one of her station.

 

But the boy is another matter entirely.

 

He is to Arthur what Gaius once was to me.  I could see it when he sprung to the boy’s defense and prevented his execution.  It was reminiscent of what I would’ve done at one time.

 

Again, I hear you speak of my hypocrisy in this matter.  But I ask you to consider this.  If I executed the boy for his magic, then would I not also have to execute Gaius for the same thing? Though he does not practice at any longer, he once did.

 

Every king needs an advisor to help him rule.  More importantly, he needs a friend who will be unquestioningly loyal but will also challenge him to do better.  A friend and advisor who will be truthful even when the truth may hurt.

 

I have often failed Gaius in that regard.  The treacherous Edwin is proof of that.  Arthur has proven to be far more faithful than I.  All I have to do is think of his flagrant disobedience to my direct orders that he let the boy die.

 

As proud as I was of his actions and the success of his mission, I was struck anew with fear.  It is no easy thing for a father to hear that the fiend who stole his wife’s life unjustly was now after his son’s life.

 

Was that witch not satisfied with stealing the heart from my chest?

 

More than ever, my son needed a friend who was willing to lay down his life for him.  Not because he made an oath to him as his knights have, as my knights have.  Not because of a promise made to serve the city he lived in but because he was loyal to him.  That boy met the qualification twice over.

 

Not only that but he showed that he cared about him above all else when he arranged for a sword to be made.  A sword unlike any I’d ever seen or used.  But a sword that did the impossible and allowed me to kill a creature that couldn’t be killed.

 

So, I will bear the title of hypocrite willingly for the sake of my son.


	2. A Burdened Gladly Shouldered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is Arthur's perspective on Merlin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There might be more if I can rediscover the inspiration for this series. They all take place in season/series one - though later seasons/series may leak in.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the idea.

 

654321

 

Did you ever get the feeling that you were in competition with someone most would regard as, not only inferior, but an idiot as well?

 

I have – with my idiot manservant, Merlin.

 

There’s just something about him that both irritates and inspires.  He’s the only person I know who will challenge my decisions, call me names, mocks me - and then turn right around and offer their life in exchange for my own.  Not because he has to but because he wants to.

 

See what I mean?

 

He irritates me even as he inspires me to try to do better, to be better.  Not even my father’s ward, Morgana, can claim to have that ability.  She just outright irritates me and goads me into doing what she feels is right.  What she knows I feel is right but am often to duty bound to take the initiative to do.

 

Had she not been this way, I'm not sure that I would have departed to retrieve the flower to cure Merlin from the poison he ingested in my place.

 

I knew, seeing the whirlwind in Ealdor, that it was Merlin who’d sent the light to save me in the cave, guiding me towards the open air and freedom.  The stupid idiot.  He should have been resting, healing, not agitating himself further.  As grateful as I am to not be dead, I am angered by his careless attitude towards himself.

 

One would think I would be more willing to turn him over to the law than be exasperated by his actions.  A tiny part of me feels betrayed by his keeping a part of himself from me.  Okay, more than a tiny part.

 

He’s my manservant and _should_ trust me.

 

I know that I was harsh towards Will’s admittance of magic but…a part of me wanted him to react.  To be himself and not the stoic man standing beside me.  It was the closet I’d ever get to having Merlin be a proper manservant to me.

 

He was respectful.  Quiet.  Dutiful.  Conscientious – and I **_hated_** it.

 

This was not the Merlin I had grown accustomed to, nor was he the Merlin I had learned to rely on.  He was the perfect servant for weeks afterwards and I tried everything – short of recklessly endangering Camelot and myself – to get him to snap out of it.

 

Still, nothing I did worked.

 

It made me wonder if my words in Ealdor had pushed him to far away from me.  If the way I had dismissed Will’s goodness because all I could see was the sorcery, had shattered his trust and faith in me somehow.  That his trust, his faith in me being able to rise above the prejudices of my father, had been irreparably damaged.

 

I knew that he talked to Guinevere, that he laughed with Morgana.  But with me, he was everything a manservant should be and nothing of what Merlin was.

 

It’s true what they say.  One can’t un-ring the bell once it’s been rung.  I just didn’t think about it.  The words just…came.

 

In desperation, I took him hunting. Once removed from the environment that had become his norm, Merlin returned to the bumbler I knew so well.  Had I but known that my rash, impetuous, and almost instinctual distrust for anything obviously magical would cause my people such agony, would I have done what I did?

 

True, I regained Merlin’s friendship – which I realized only as we sat with a cup of poison between us was never lost to me – but the cost to my people was high.  The cost to my image of my father was damaged as well.  When he condemned our people to death, I questioned his judgment.

 

If he was heartless enough to let our people go hungry, could he be wrong about magic?  And if he was wrong, then there was a lot of blood on his hands from the deaths they’d caused.

 

Part of me hates Merlin for this.

 

For being there to pull open my eyes to see this wrongness in my father.

 

**_And_** for not owing up to the magic in him that makes him different from others.  I knew from the moment he was there before me, on his very first day in Camelot, when he dared to stand before me and challenge me, that he was different.  I’ve never met _anyone_ who was so unaffected by me and what I did to him.  The words I used to scoff him seemed to slide down off of him like rain down the side of our castle.

 

Contrarily, I’ve never known anyone so ready to defend me – to **_die_** for me.

 

It goes both ways, this need to protect and save each other.  I have never known anyone – not even Morgana – who I’d stand up to my father to save.  Who I would defend without a single thought even when I had a vague suspicion that he may have magic.

 

I mean, really, no one could be **_that_** continuously clumsy and lucky, I knew that I had to defend him from his stupid nobility.  Thank heavens I was able to come up with an excuse my father would listen to.

 

And Merlin’s reaction played right into my hands.

 

I hated to hurt Gwen and Morgana by choosing Merlin over the girls I’d known all my life, but the choice was clear to me.  Unquestionable.  Merlin chose to save me though I had treated him harshly.  He tried to help me even after I sacked him.

 

Prince though I am, he showed more nobility than I ever did.

 

He’s clumsy, brash, often speaks before thinking, acts even before there can be any rational thought – and don’t even get me started on the fact that he doesn’t even know how to treat anyone of high rank with deference.  Yet, these are all superficial flaws, faults.

 

Merlin has **_depth_**.

 

He has character and is completely, blindly loyal to me, though I have done absolutely nothing to earn it.

 

It shames me that this country raised boy is more of a gentleman than my noblest knight.  As this is so, I must keep him near me, to learn from him what it is to have that kind of integrity in the face of all oppression.

 

He swims against the tide and makes it look so easy, so worth it that I cannot help but want to follow his lead.

 

And yet, I wish to guide him.  To lead him into all that he could be.  To make him realize that he shouldn’t **_have_** to lie about who and what he is.  At least, not to me.  Merlin needs me.

 

He really does.

 

I don’t think I’ve ever been really needed by someone – at least, not as Arthur.  It is a burden I’ll gladly bear for it is one he would bear for me.

 

The End


End file.
